Author: Mathew Ingram

From the Library of Congress: “Thomas Paine was a national hero, best known as the author of Common Sense, which convinced many Americans to join the fight against the British. Over time, however, he became a social outcast, particularly for his controversial views on organized religion. He died in poverty on June 8, 1809 and only six people attended the burial — his isolated grave was all but forgotten until a onetime foe dug up his skeleton ten years after his death. William Cobbett had once been Paine’s bitterest enemy, but he became disillusioned with the Tory class he had so staunchly defended and came to believe that he had done Paine a great injustice. Cobbett was horrified when he visited Paine’s neglected grave, so he dug him up and tried to have a memorial created in Britain. Upon Cobbett’s death in 1835, the bones then were passed to a day laborer, then Cobbett’s secretary, then oblivion. According to legend, some of the bones were lost or destroyed, made into buttons, or sold off individually.”

Scientists say female frogs pretend to be dead to avoid unwanted attention from male frogs

From ABC News: “Female European common frogs were observed engaging in “tonic immobility,” essentially feigning their own death to avoid mating, according to a study published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science. The phenomenon seems to have evolved in order for females to survive an intense and potentially dangerous mating season, Carolin Dittrich, an evolutionary and behavioral ecologist who conducted the research as part of the Natural History Museum Berlin, told ABC News. European common frogs engage in an “explosive” breeding season, a short season in which males fiercely compete for access to females, which results in scrambling and fighting. Males also may harass, coerce or intimidate females into mating, according to the study. Amid the chaos, female frogs are at risk of getting trapped in “mating balls,” in which several males cling to them to vie for their attention, which could lead to their death.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “No one knows what happened to Thomas Paine’s body”

From Now I Know: “Some believe that July 4, 1776, is not truly America’s independence day. That honor should fall to either July 2, 1776, or August 2, 1776. On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress created a sub-committee of five delegates – Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman – empowered to write a first draft of a declaration of independence. Jefferson took the lead and the quintet delivered their draft on June 28th. After a few days of debates and revisions, the Congress voted to declare independence – on July 2nd, not July 4th. nstead, we Americans celebrate independence on the 4th, the day the Continental Congress ratified the text of the document. Ratified – but not signed. According to National Geographic, many of those who signed the famous piece of parchment were not present on the 4th of July and the document wasn’t signed until August 2nd.”

Scientists are using the bodies of dead spiders as miniature claw machines

From Scientific American: “Spider corpses turned into robots sounds like the far-fetched plotline of a B horror movie. But researchers from Rice University have created just that—dead wolf spiders that can be used as machines to pick up and put down objects. In a paper published in Advanced Science, researchers have dubbed the use of biotic materials as robotic components “necrobotics.” They say this area of research could be used to create biodegradable grippers for very small objects. “We understand that many people are put off by the sight of a spider, but from an engineering point of view, the spider’s mechanism of movement is very interesting,” said Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice. The research began in 2019, when the scientists noticed a dead spider curled up in their lab. Yap and her colleagues did a quick search and discovered that spiders have a hydraulic pressure system that controls their limbs.” 

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Independence Day should be on July 2nd or August 2nd”

I’d like to apologize in advance for the topic of this week’s newsletter, which I fear may not interest all (or perhaps even most) of you. It would be nice to think that lots of people care about the nuances of how news and information gets published, and the challenges that the modern web and social media and tech monopolies (among other things) pose to our information ecosystem, but a long career as a journalist writing about tech — including publishing technology like Substack — has convinced me that this is very much not the case! So if you are one of those people for whom this topic induces snoring, please feel free to ignore this week’s newsletter and then come back later 😄

If you are reading this newsletter via Substack, the headline might seem a little confusing. Don’t I use Substack to publish The Torment Nexus? I sure do, because I want to reach potential readers in as many ways as possible, and lots of people use Substack. However, I also publish this newsletter using Ghost — an open-source platform — and I simultaneously post all of the newsletters to my personal website, which runs on WordPress (a platform that I confess also has some problematic aspects). Unlike many of the people who publish on Substack, I don’t have a paywall that kicks in at a certain point, or hides posts or premium options behind a subscription. I rely on donations through both Substack and Ghost to support my newsletters (including my daily newsletter When The Going Gets Weird), and I also have a Patreon portal where you can send money if you want to support my work with a specific amount of your choosing.

As you can probably gather from the above description, I am not backing one specific horse in the web publishing race. If you want to read my writing via Substack that’s great, and if you want to read it via Ghost that’s also great, but if you’d rather use the old-fashioned open web that’s fine too. This makes monetization somewhat more difficult, since people can easily get my newsletter without paying and therefore there isn’t a compelling reason for subscribing or donating (apart from just the fact that you like me or my writing). But I am willing to live with that because I think the free and open exchange of information is a crucial aspect of the web — although it is becoming less and less common all the time. And that’s part of why I don’t think that Substack is the real future of web publishing, or at least shouldn’t be the future.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing”

From Now I Know: “Some believe that July 4, 1776, is not truly America’s independence day. That honor should fall to either July 2, 1776, or August 2, 1776. On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress created a sub-committee of five delegates – Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman – empowered to write a first draft of a declaration of independence. Jefferson took the lead and the quintet delivered their draft on June 28th. After a few days of debates and revisions, the Congress voted to declare independence – on July 2nd, not July 4th. nstead, we Americans celebrate independence on the 4th, the day the Continental Congress ratified the text of the document. Ratified – but not signed. According to National Geographic, many of those who signed the famous piece of parchment were not present on the 4th of July and the document wasn’t signed until August 2nd.”

Scientists are using the bodies of dead spiders as miniature claw machines

From Scientific American: “Spider corpses turned into robots sounds like the far-fetched plotline of a B horror movie. But researchers from Rice University have created just that—dead wolf spiders that can be used as machines to pick up and put down objects. In a paper published in Advanced Science, researchers have dubbed the use of biotic materials as robotic components “necrobotics.” They say this area of research could be used to create biodegradable grippers for very small objects. “We understand that many people are put off by the sight of a spider, but from an engineering point of view, the spider’s mechanism of movement is very interesting,” said Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice. The research began in 2019, when the scientists noticed a dead spider curled up in their lab. Yap and her colleagues did a quick search and discovered that spiders have a hydraulic pressure system that controls their limbs.” 

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Independence Day should be on July 2nd or August 2nd”

I’d like to apologize in advance for the topic of this week’s newsletter, which I fear may not interest all (or perhaps even most) of you. It would be nice to think that lots of people care about the nuances of how news and information gets published, and the challenges that the modern web and social media and tech monopolies (among other things) pose to our information ecosystem, but a long career as a journalist writing about tech — including publishing technology like Substack — has convinced me that this is very much not the case! So if you are one of those people for whom this topic induces snoring, please feel free to ignore this week’s newsletter and then come back later 😄

If you are reading this newsletter via Substack, the headline might seem a little confusing. Don’t I use Substack to publish The Torment Nexus? I sure do, because I want to reach potential readers in as many ways as possible, and lots of people use Substack. However, I also publish this newsletter using Ghost — an open-source platform — and I simultaneously post all of the newsletters to my personal website, which runs on WordPress (a platform that I confess also has some problematic aspects). Unlike many of the people who publish on Substack, I don’t have a paywall that kicks in at a certain point, or hides posts or premium options behind a subscription. I rely on donations through both Substack and Ghost to support my newsletters (including my daily newsletter When The Going Gets Weird), and I also have a Patreon portal where you can send money if you want to support my work with a specific amount of your choosing.

As you can probably gather from the above description, I am not backing one specific horse in the web publishing race. If you want to read my writing via Substack that’s great, and if you want to read it via Ghost that’s also great, but if you’d rather use the old-fashioned open web that’s fine too. This makes monetization somewhat more difficult, since people can easily get my newsletter without paying and therefore there isn’t a compelling reason for subscribing or donating (apart from just the fact that you like me or my writing). But I am willing to live with that because I think the free and open exchange of information is a crucial aspect of the web — although it is becoming less and less common all the time. And that’s part of why I don’t think that Substack is the real future of web publishing, or at least shouldn’t be the future.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing”

From Vice: “Back in 2010, in social media’s Wild West years, Eminem shared a photo on Twitter of a Donkey Kong machine, boasting a high score of 465,800, which, per DonkeyKongBlog, would have put him very near the top 30 scores in the world at the time. The high score at the time of Em’s post was just over 1,000,000 points, which is a pretty far shot from his total, but it’s still impressive. A 2014 YouTube playthrough of the game that lands at a similar score takes just over an hour to complete, meaning that for his high score alone, Eminem was sweating and twitching over an arcade cabinet for at least an hour straight. For what it’s worth, The Verge reported in 2014 that top tier players sink thousands of hours of practice into their record-breaking runs, so it’s likely that Em had to put some serious time in to hit that mark. Of course, given that he only posted a still and not a stream or a video clip, Eminem’s run at Kong is unverifiable, so he doesn’t land on any of the official leaderboards.”

Scientists are using modified E. coli bacteria to turn plastic into a common painkiller

From Nature: “A common bacterium can be adapted to convert plastic waste into paracetamol, a study published this week in Nature Chemistry reports. Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, is widely used to treat pain and fever. It is produced from molecules derived from fossil fuels, but researchers are working to develop processes that use more sustainable source molecules, such as plastic waste. Central to the project’s success was the discovery by Wallace and his team that a synthetic chemical reaction that typically requires conditions that are toxic to cells can occur in their presence. The reaction, called the Lossen rearrangement, has been known for more than a century, but had previously been observed only in a test tube or a flask. The researchers used conventional chemical methods to degrade and modify polyethylene terephthalate, then added this molecule into a culture of E. coli, where the Lossen rearrangement transformed it into a more biologically relevant molecule.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Eminem was once a world-class Donkey Kong player”

From Vice: “Back in 2010, in social media’s Wild West years, Eminem shared a photo on Twitter of a Donkey Kong machine, boasting a high score of 465,800, which, per DonkeyKongBlog, would have put him very near the top 30 scores in the world at the time. The high score at the time of Em’s post was just over 1,000,000 points, which is a pretty far shot from his total, but it’s still impressive. A 2014 YouTube playthrough of the game that lands at a similar score takes just over an hour to complete, meaning that for his high score alone, Eminem was sweating and twitching over an arcade cabinet for at least an hour straight. For what it’s worth, The Verge reported in 2014 that top tier players sink thousands of hours of practice into their record-breaking runs, so it’s likely that Em had to put some serious time in to hit that mark. Of course, given that he only posted a still and not a stream or a video clip, Eminem’s run at Kong is unverifiable, so he doesn’t land on any of the official leaderboards.”

Scientists are using modified E. coli bacteria to turn plastic into a common painkiller

From Nature: “A common bacterium can be adapted to convert plastic waste into paracetamol, a study published this week in Nature Chemistry reports. Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, is widely used to treat pain and fever. It is produced from molecules derived from fossil fuels, but researchers are working to develop processes that use more sustainable source molecules, such as plastic waste. Central to the project’s success was the discovery by Wallace and his team that a synthetic chemical reaction that typically requires conditions that are toxic to cells can occur in their presence. The reaction, called the Lossen rearrangement, has been known for more than a century, but had previously been observed only in a test tube or a flask. The researchers used conventional chemical methods to degrade and modify polyethylene terephthalate, then added this molecule into a culture of E. coli, where the Lossen rearrangement transformed it into a more biologically relevant molecule.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Eminem was once a world-class Donkey Kong player”

From Aeon: “In September of 1848, Phineas Gage was using an iron ‘tamping rod’ to pack an explosive charge into a hole. The charge exploded prematurely, firing the iron straight through his head. Miraculously, Gage survived, but his doctor noted a marked change in Gage’s personality: he had become ‘fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity’ and ‘a child in his intellectual capacity.’ The doctor concluded that this decline was a consequence of the damage done by the tamping iron to the frontal lobes of Gage’s brain. More than a century later, Gage’s transformation would still be referenced as the quintessential case study. ‘He took to gambling and sleeping with prostitutes,’ neuroscientist David Eagleman said in a talk at the Royal Society for the Arts in 2010. ‘He could not be trusted to honour his commitments,’ wrote neuroscientist Hanna Damasio and colleagues in 1994. The sensational impact of this version of Gage’s story would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s largely fictional.”

He bought a house and then found a massive model train setup underneath the floor

From SBS News: “After Daniel Xu and his wife finalised the purchase of their house in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, he found what can only be described as a train enthusiast’s dream beneath their feet. Underneath his new home, Xu discovered a model train setup, designed around an extensive network of train lines and miniature landscapes. With plans for renovations, Xu needed to get beneath his house, much of which is raised, sitting above a carport. Entering the undercroft of his new home via a small door, Xu was shocked to find the area, which is just tall enough to stand in, entirely taken up by the elaborate setup. He said nothing had been mentioned about model trains during the open home inspections. Coincidentally, Xu is a train enthusiast. He works as a rolling stock engineer for a company that manufactures new trains.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Most of what we know about a famous brain injury case is wrong”

From Aeon: “In September of 1848, Phineas Gage was using an iron ‘tamping rod’ to pack an explosive charge into a hole. The charge exploded prematurely, firing the iron straight through his head. Miraculously, Gage survived, but his doctor noted a marked change in Gage’s personality: he had become ‘fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity’ and ‘a child in his intellectual capacity.’ The doctor concluded that this decline was a consequence of the damage done by the tamping iron to the frontal lobes of Gage’s brain. More than a century later, Gage’s transformation would still be referenced as the quintessential case study. ‘He took to gambling and sleeping with prostitutes,’ neuroscientist David Eagleman said in a talk at the Royal Society for the Arts in 2010. ‘He could not be trusted to honour his commitments,’ wrote neuroscientist Hanna Damasio and colleagues in 1994. The sensational impact of this version of Gage’s story would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s largely fictional.”

He bought a house and then found a massive model train setup underneath the floor

From SBS News: “After Daniel Xu and his wife finalised the purchase of their house in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, he found what can only be described as a train enthusiast’s dream beneath their feet. Underneath his new home, Xu discovered a model train setup, designed around an extensive network of train lines and miniature landscapes. With plans for renovations, Xu needed to get beneath his house, much of which is raised, sitting above a carport. Entering the undercroft of his new home via a small door, Xu was shocked to find the area, which is just tall enough to stand in, entirely taken up by the elaborate setup. He said nothing had been mentioned about model trains during the open home inspections. Coincidentally, Xu is a train enthusiast. He works as a rolling stock engineer for a company that manufactures new trains.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Most of what we know about a famous brain injury case is wrong”

From Engora: “A spy, a scoundrel, and a scholar — William Playfair was all three. He led an extraordinary life at the heart of many of the great events of the 18th and 19th centuries, mostly in morally dubious roles. Among all the intrigue, scandal, and indebtedness, he found time to invent the bar and pie charts, and make pioneering use of line charts. Playfair had always been a good writer and good at explaining data. He’d produced several books and pamphlets, and by the mid-1790s, he was trying to earn a living at it. But things didn’t go too well, and he ended up imprisoned for debt in the notorious Fleet Prison (released in 1802). There were no official government spying agencies at the time, but the British government quite happily paid for freelancers to do it. He discovered the secrets of the breakthrough French semaphore system while living in Frankfurt and handed them over to the British government in the mid-1790s.”

The 400-year old mystery of Roanoke may have finally been solved

From Fox Digital: “A team of researchers believes they may have cracked one of America’s most enduring legends: Where did the settlers of the Roanoke Colony go? Known as the Lost Colony, it was the first English settlement attempt in the United States. A group of over 100 colonists settled on North Carolina’s Roanoke Island in 1587, led by Sir Walter Raleigh. John White, the governor of the colony, returned to England for supplies in 1587. When he came back to Roanoke Island in August 1590, he found the settlement mysteriously abandoned – and all the colonists, including his daughter Eleanor Dare and his granddaughter Virginia Dare, gone. One of the only clues remaining at the site was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a palisade, which might referred to Croatoan Island, which is now called Hatteras Island, or the Croatoan Indians. The mystery has haunted Americans and Brits for the past four centuries.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “He was a spy and a scam artist who also invented the bar chart”

From Flaming Hydra: “The best-kept secret in the history of Marvel Comics was in high dudgeon by the time he sat down at his typewriter. It was a July afternoon in 1971, and Ron Whyte, a playwright and activist, was about to hammer out an ill-advised letter. Truth be told, there may have been some pills involved: he had just finished the 15-minute ordeal of strapping on the prosthetics that he had used to walk since the age of 20, when the doctors had amputated what remained of his legs, and he’d long since relied on a variety of drugs for help with the pain he experienced as a gay, poor, legally blind, paraplegic double amputee. What we know is that Ron Whyte was at Marvel Comics in 1966, where he worked with Stan Lee and Roy Thomas. And curiously,  in the large collection of Ron Whyte’s papers at Yale University there are scripts for some of the most storied and beloved comics — comics eventually published in Stan Lee’s name.”

Two hundred thousand eggs disappeared and then came the ransom note

From the Washington Post: “The hens were unaware of the heist. Before the product of their labor was an item on a police report, it was a shipment headed from Maryland to Florida: 280,000 brown eggs. They belonged to Cal-Maine Foods, which boasts being number one in the pecking order of egg supply. About 1 of every 5 eggs sold in America are laid by a Cal-Maine hen. They line the refrigerated shelves of Walmarts, Costcos and other supermarkets, labeled Eggland’s Best, Land O’Lakes and other brands. By gobbling up its competitors, Cal-Maine built an egg empire without most egg eaters knowing the company’s name. But by the April afternoon when the 280,000 eggs left the farm, that was beginning to change. A winter spike in bird flu was widely seen as the cause of empty shelves and eggs doubling or tripling in price.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “A gay paraplegic had a key role in the early days of Marvel”